1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an image data communication system in which a plurality of client computers and a server system are capable of communicating with each other via a network, a server system and a method of controlling the operation thereof, and a recording medium storing a program for controlling the server system.
The invention relates further to a registration system for an image database, an image database search system, registration and search methods, and a recording medium storing a program for controlling an image database.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image data communication system for uploading image data from a client computer to a server system is constructed via a network such as the Internet. By accessing the server system, image data that has been uploaded to the server system is downloaded to the client computer.
If image data containing a large quantity of data is uploaded to the server system, an image printed using this image data will have a high quality. However, downloading a large quantity of image data takes time. If image data containing a small quantity of data is uploaded to the server system in order to shorten download time, the image quality of the image printed using this image data will decline.
Some image databases allow the input of a keyword (search information), which is for searching image data that has been registered in the database, using a keyboard or the like. Thus, means for inputting the keyword is required.
In some arrangements, alphanumeric characters contained in an image are extracted and the extracted alphanumeric characters are registered as a keyword in an image database in association with the image data. However, such an arrangement requires a special device to extract the alphanumeric characters from the image.